


Achilles Tendon

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Tales of Legendia
Genre: Emotional Hurt/No Comfort, F/F, Intrusive Thoughts, Physical hurt/comfort, Post-Canon, Sickfic, also Elsa pervs uncomfortably on Chloe’s legs, homocidal ideation, she means well she’s just not the most socially adept, threatening behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26388364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: Chloe always felt Stingle in these moments, as the rain pitter-pattered against the window. She wasn’t sure how to drive Elsa away.
Relationships: Elsa Alcott/Chloe Valens
Kudos: 3





	Achilles Tendon

It was too difficult for him, Chloe thought. For both of them, really, stuck in the same household day after day. They made polite conversation, plastered on smiles that were more strained than genuine, and tried to look forward instead of back. It was too difficult. That was why Elsa was here now instead of him.

Chloe didn’t know where Alcott was currently, but she always felt Stingle’s presence in these moments, as the rain pitter-pattered against the windowsill in her hospital room. It seemed he was always at her back, and it made no difference that her back was currently covered, leaning up against the headboard, against the wall. Stingle was ever present, but always flitting away, just out of sight.

Elsa was rubbing a salve over Chloe’s ankle, in small concentric circles, in this strange hospital room that had long since been retrofitted to everyday use. There were odd remnants of what it used to be – a privacy curtain around the bed that fell from the ceiling track, a whiteboard that might have once held patient charts that Elsa had filled in with hearts and love notes, a sink and wash basin in the middle of the room, and a rather sterile looking wallpaper with the pattern of daisies and bees. Then there were the signs of what it was – mug and toothbrush and a comb on the dresser, a tourist’s poster for the Legacy that Norma had gifted her, and a closet full of the armour and weapons of a knight. And finally the signs of the impromptu sickroom it had been turned back into – the bowls of chicken soup stacked on the nightstand, an extra blanket Elsa had pulled out of storage, and the bedpan that Chloe had been too humiliated to use on Elsa’s insistence, at least until she remembered that her relationship with Elsa could not get more humiliating.

“Does the joint feel less tense?” Elsa asked, as she massaged the Achilles tendon. The salve had successfully numbed the nerve endings and relaxed the muscle. “I can’t believe you,” she said with fond exasperation. “Running out in the rain, when you’re not feeling well, just to break up a fight? Unbelievable.”

One of the people in town had run to the hospital door, knowing of her reputation. And Chloe had pulled a man off a girlfriend he had beaten bloody, and done the same to him.

And then on the way back, her foot had slipped on the mud, her ankle had twisted, and she lay fallen on the ground – straining to inhale the cold, moist air through her sore and swollen throat.

“It’s the responsibility of a knight to stick up for those who can’t defend themselves.”

“But you’re n-” _Not a knight._ Elsa sighed. “I know,” she said, instead. She reached for Chloe’s hand and pressed it against her cheek. “You’re my hero.”

Chloe continued to stare out the window.

She tried to let her apparent disinterest speak for her. It hurt to speak with a throat this swollen, and every word sounded hoarse and garbled.

“You’re so- Refined? Delicate?” Elsa gushed. She ran a finger up Chloe’s calf. “I’d be almost jealous of you – long thin legs. But I enjoy them more on you than I would on myself.” She giggled anxiously, and her face flushed.

“I hate the rain,” Chloe said tersely, hoping Elsa would take the hint. It was not that Chloe disliked her. But she was young and naïve, and there was no way to respond to her feelings that felt satisfactory.

“…I know,” Elsa said. But her hand was still resting on Chloe’s leg and she smiled a little blankly or a little anxiously, and Chloe didn’t think she did. “Your voice sounds really bad,” Elsa continued in a bright lilting voice. “Should I make you some tea and honey?”

“I want to kill him,” Chloe said, quiet and angry. “I want to carve my sword into your father’s back.” She inhaled sharply and painfully. “I think sometimes – I’ll carve into his back where his kidneys are, and cut them out. You know from the medical diagrams – they’re underneath the rib cage. Easy to get at.”

“Chloe-” Elsa tried.

It was good her voice was hoarse and ugly, and that speaking every word hurt. It made Chloe sound like a villain. She couldn’t be Elsa’s hero, because she was Elsa’s villain. “I don’t want him to die fast though. I’ll dig the blade shallow against the surface, and cut off strips of flesh first. I think, ‘I’ll saw off his limbs. One by one. And watch him cry and beg – a bloody stump of a torso flailing on the ground.’”

“Stop!” Elsa’s face had contorted into a wobbly frown. “Chloe, stop. I can’t hear this.”

And Elsa shouldn’t have to hear it, Chloe thought. But part of her wanted to laugh. This was just a fantasy. It wasn’t actually going to happen. Elsa was so delicate, she couldn’t even stand to hear about it – when Chloe saw it every day?

“Should I say what happened instead?” she rasped. “It’s not just my imagination. Do you think I could have imagined the looks on their faces?” Chloe spat.

She lifted her hand, and drew a fist across her abdomen. “He grabbed my mother from behind, and drew a knife through her stomach. Her guts were dripping out onto the ground, into a puddle of rainwater. And then he drove a sword through her back.”

Chloe felt a certain amount of dissociative calm relaying this. She had pictured it in her mind’s eye a thousand times, and the image had started to numb. It was gratifying to see it produce something like horror in Elsa.

“And my father- It was an extended fight. Alcott stabbed him twice through his sword arm, to disable him. And at the end he plunged the sword straight through my dad’s neck.” Chloe frowned. “And the sword caught, and Alcott had to really force it free through the left side of his neck. And then he put his boot on my fallen father’s chest, grabbed him by the hair, and ripped.”

There was more to say. More about their faces. More about how their bodies and skin paled and died and were washed away in the rain.

“I don’t want to hear about that either,” Elsa said, helplessly. Her face was turned down, and her hands were folded on her lap, clutching the fabric of her dress. Chloe could tell she was crying.

But she wasn’t leaving. She was sitting there with maddening stillness. And Chloe wanted to cry too, because she was running out of ideas about how to drive Elsa away.

With a pained grunt, Chloe swivelled sideways on the bed, up onto her hip. She grabbed Elsa roughly by the forearm, digging in her fingers to bruise, and pulled her out of the bedside chair and onto the bed.

Elsa flinched, and looked up with watery eyes, as Chloe straddled her.

Chloe thought of the boyfriend who beat his girlfriend bloody. She thought about beating Elsa. About flailing punches and kicks, and the blotchy purple-black patches she’d leave on Elsa’s skin. She’d let Alcott see the bruises, before she drove the sword through Elsa’s back.

She couldn’t tell Elsa that though. Elsa didn’t deserve that – having to hear about those thoughts. She didn’t deserve to have to hear about any of them. But these thoughts were a little too far beyond the pale, and Chloe couldn’t make herself do it.

Chloe said the next best thing. “You don’t deserve to lose your father. But he deserves it- He deserves to lose you. He deserves to lose every good thing that’s ever happened to him.”

Elsa’s tears fell silently, and caught on the ribbons in her hair. “I know,” she said.

Chloe didn’t believe her this time either. Alcott was a different person to Elsa – loving father, only parent, caretaker when she was sick. Elsa didn’t know Stingle.

But Chloe was defeated. She was sick and tired, and she didn’t know what else to do to drive Elsa away. Not without becoming someone she’d hate even more. She lifted her knee, and climbed off Elsa – to the left of her on the bed, towards the window. The rain pitter-pattered against the glass.

Elsa laid there for a moment, and then sniffled and wiped her face and got up. Chloe was crumpled over herself, with her face down and sideways against the pillow and facing away. She heard the bubbling of boiling water in the electric kettle, and the clink of tapping dishware.

She turned her head to the other side, when Elsa came back. Elsa was holding a large mug, with a vibrant orange slice cut over the rim.

“Camomile and honey,” Elsa said, with a half-hearted smile. “It will soothe your throat, so you can say what you have to say more easily.” She winced.

Chloe exhaled through her nose. She pressed herself up on the bed, rearranged herself in sitting position, and accepted the mug from Elsa without a word. It would have hurt too much to say thank you.

Elsa sat down in the bedside chair and was quiet this time. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, as if to nap.

She seemed to be settling in for a long night. And Chloe didn’t know how to get rid of her. But in a way, that was something she could say for Elsa. She was here, when things were miserable and Stingle was everywhere, and Alcott was too cowardly to even show his face.

Chloe sipped the tea. Elsa had heated it to a perfect temperature, not burning or lukewarm. Just hot and sweet. Maybe she didn’t deserve it, but it really did make her throat feel better.


End file.
